Sumo Steaks

We woke up to a nice surprise on Monday morning. We were featured on City Paper’s food blog “Meal Ticket”. The wonderful Drew Lazor took the time out to talk to our own Bill Creagh about the project and the anticipated opening.

A little sneak peek:

“[Sumo Steaks] will serve cheesesteaks, chicken cheesesteaks (on Liscio’s rolls), fresh-cut fries and buffalo wings; the Sumo name, Creagh says, is a lighthearted nod to the sumo athlete’s practice of packing in massive amounts of food to prepare for competition (slogan: “Train like a Sumo…EAT!”).”

Read the full article here and be sure to check out @drewlazor and his blog @mealticket on Twitter.

Also, we’re on Facebook now, with our own fan page. Be sure to “Like” us over there, and keep up to date with our minute-by-minute new happenings.

It won’t be long folks, we’ll be opening soon and serving up cheesesteaks that you’ll proudly describe as heaven on a roll.

Now the big things are happening. After weeks of sampling tons of rolls (and consuming tons of carbs), we’ve chosen THE roll that will be used at Sumo Steaks. The roll just seemed to stand out from the rest in texture, taste, and, just everything.

Seeing Signs

Also being contemplated is what will be our sign. We have a few professional contributions. You can see that the general idea is the same, with the exception of which Sumo guy to use. These decisions have proven to be very difficult since we seem to like just about every option that we see. Here are our favorites.

Passing The Cup

It’s safe to say that everybody recognizes a Starbucks Coffee cup. People just kind of know by the look of it. Pretty soon, we hope that everyone knows a Sumo Steaks Cup. We’ve gotten some really solid proofs in of what we believe our cups are going to look like. And of course, we’re giving a preview of those to you right now. Choosing graphics and designs is quite a difficult task. When you’re presented with so many amazing options, it’s hard to choose one. But we think we have it down.

That’s a Wrap!

We have one final little sneaky peek for you to wrap up this post.

Part of the fun of eating a cheesesteak, a good cheesesteak, is holding that paper wrapper in your hands, right? The paper that catches all of the extra delicious pieces of steak, wiz, onions, and ketchup that miss your mouth. It happens to the best of us.

We’re taking the look and feel of our wrappers, napkins, etc. very seriously, and we think we have our design narrowed down to two. This isn’t supposed to be available yet, but we have a hard time keeping our fun decisions under wraps (Get it?) . Take a sneak peak at what we’re decided on for our wrappers.

That does it for our updates for now.  The team has been heavy-duty multitasking this evening between brainstorming, and screaming at the Phillies to get moving on the comeback they need to make to beat the Mets. 6 Runs in one inning? Come. On. We’re using the rage as brain fuel to get things done tonight. It’s working. Kind of.

Stay tuned here, and on Twitter (Yep, we’re tweeting now!) for updates, timelines, and the inside scoop on Sumo Steaks. We’re getting excited! Hope you are too!

I can’t tell you the number of notes that we take at a team meeting. Whether all of us get together for a jam session or if it’s just two of us pens, pencils, paper and even napkins are flying everywhere. The recent agenda has been our sign.

Every good restaurant needs a good sign. One that’s attractive and draws people in. While we have the general idea down from our sign guys,  the team has been hard at work putting their heads together for some ideas of which direction we’d like to go with the firm details of the sign. We’ve literally had hundreds of ideas. Whenever we get a new idea, we jot it down, or better yet, draw it. The latest addition to our possible sign ideas is one that would feature “big light bulbs”, almost like an amusement park type feel (similar to the photo on the right) which  was clearly shown to us with this fabulous drawing on the left. What do you think?

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

From what color logo, to the kind of soda products, to the hours of operation, the Sumo Steaks team has been sitting in a big circle making tough decisions that may make or break the business.

Okay, that might be a bit dramatic, but let’s be honest, it’s important to explore all avenues and there are lots of things to consider making any decision, no matter how seemingly small.

And then came the hat decision that we’re currently in the middle of.

We’re experiencing a love/hate hat relationship. We love all of the options we have, we hate making a decision. So, we’re putting this out there for some community feedback. We need your help!

Take a look at the logos and style options below, and vote on what your favorite one is. If you’re feeling extra helpful, leave a comment on why you feel the hat design is the best. After all, these hats are for you, Philly. You need to like them just as much, if not more that we do.

There are a few other hats in the mix that we may introduce in a future poll, but for now? Have at ’em. Tell us what you think!

[polldaddy poll=”4861225″]

The product you’re going to sell is important. Just as important is the logo that you’re going to use to sell your product. We have a professional sign team working on some proofs for us.

Here’s a peak at one of our favorite designs that they’ve come up with for us. They drew up a few options and we’re pretty certain we’re going to go with something relatively close to this idea. The bright colors are a must for us. Plus, we love our little Sumo guy.

We checked one more thing off of our ‘to-do’ list today.

Today, the team had a meeting to take a look at some oven hood options. It might not seem like a big thing, but it truly is.

For those of you who don’t know, the purpose of the oven hood is to exhaust flames and smoke. Since we’re going to be doing a lot of cookin’ at Sumo Steaks, a functional oven hood is a must.

Here’s a sample drawing of a hood that we had in mind:

The meeting itself went very well. The hood is ordered, and the representative advised us that he would take care of all of the backend work such as drawings and permits that need to be submitted to the city. We’re looking at an estimated time of installation completion around 20 days from now.

We’re all super excited, the hood is a major accomplishment, and it puts us one step closer to that big opening day.

Allegheny West Foundation recently gave Sumo Steaks a big thumbs up to continue our plans to bring new business and opportunities to North Philly.

Allegheny West Foundation is a non-profit organization that focuses primarily on development. Their primary focus is revitalizing the Allegheny West Neighborhood of Philadelphia. Our team supports the efforts of the foundation and hope to partner up with them on some projects that we are actively thinking about and are excited to put into action. We hope to target both the youth and economic development of the Allegheny West area, which is right on target with what the mission of Allegheny West Foundation.

Their support and recommendation to our project was not only essential for us to continue building, but it was a great honor to be recognized as a potential benefit to the area. We’re not just all about cheesesteaks. We’re about the community too.